The Challenge:
Membership doesn’t seem to be growing, and you seem to have a lot of nonmembers attending events or signing up for educational opportunities. What can you do?
The Solution:
Many organizations are unable to define succinctly their membership value. It’s a key component to not only growing membership but also retaining the members you have worked so hard to recruit.
At The Solution, we often start with a simple exercise, in conjunction with the board and/or membership chair:
- List out all your stated benefits of membership
- Assign a dollar value to each member benefit
- Look at what benefits nonmembers can get for a fee (or even free)
- Add up the dollar amounts – how do they align with what you charge?
Some benefits are easy to define and assign a value to. Some are not, but it’s critical to assign a dollar value.
Often, a board might list a benefit such as a free newsletter. But do you let nonmembers have that benefit? If so, it’s not a benefit of membership! The same principle applies to listing industry advocacy as a member benefit – if everyone in the industry benefits, it is not a member only benefit.
A side bonus to this exercise is that you will most likely identify a listed benefit that isn’t particularly popular. It may be that you decide it’s time to axe that benefit and focus on the benefits that bring true value to the members and are highly coveted and used.
Understanding your true member value is critical to helping to grow your association’s membership and keep a high retention rate as well.
